Krazy Kragnar's Alchemical Surplus Shop (PFRPG) PDF

The world’s ultimate goblin entrepreneur is back! His previous business (detailed in Loot 4 Less, vol. 7: Krazy Kragnar’s Used Chariots) was closed after a dwarven nobleman perished in a freak houda accident. Now Krazy Kragnar returns with a whole new business plan—he is the owner and chief salesman of the Alchemical Surplus Shop, a place that buys alchemist fire that’s past its use-by date, thunderstones that don’t meet military specifications, and refurbished tanglefoot bags in bulk and passes the savings on to the customer.

Of course, when dealing with alchemical materials that are left over from, rejected by, or bought at the estate sale of the previous owner, you often end up with some nonstandard merchandise. The Alchemical Surplus Shop would be happy to sell discounted acid flasks and sunrods if they were available, but such items are bought up long before Kragnar gets on the scene. Not to worry, though! Less popular items are usually passed over by merchants salvaging the smoking crater of a failed alchemical bazaar, and their loss is your gain! Kragnar has pulled together new items—from the cacophonous boompot to the subtle clocktinder—all available only here!

So come browse the shelves, flip through the seasonal catalog, and check out the daily specials. Krazy Kragnar has dozens of alchemical items you’ve never even heard of, ready to arm adventurers with the power of almost-magic and challenge alchemists by offering new items for them to craft.

Average product rating:

Revisited

The First official book in the Kragnar series, brings that entrepreneurial goblin from the Loot 4 Less series into his own. We are presented with oddball alchemical items, as opposed to the everyday stuff, as if that benchmark did in fact exist. Within this PDF you will find a handy table listing the new alchemical items with costs, weight and craft DCs. You'll also find rules for damaged and expired items, and what results they may or may not introduce to your players. We're also given a logical and well thought out argument for the alchemical item as opposed to handing out yet another generic magic loot item to our players, as the alchemical force players to think more creatively, and tend to bypass certain magical defenses easier.

The book is presented in the three column format with a mix of B&W and color artwork, the B&W art being specific pieces from the book, while the color pieces are scenic shots of townsfolk and street views. The artwork ranges from good to very good. The only formatting/grammatical head-scratcher I found was in the Dragonrod description. The way the picture is embedded in the text you lose track of a word easily, and it makes the text read odd. Upon realizing the word is on the far side of the picture, it is impossible to not notice that the word “is” is in fact presented as the letters “i” and “s”, as they are spaced apart. A small thing, but odd none the less.

The newly presented items are as follows:
Alchemical Goad (Standard/Greater/Sovereign): Liquid used to bolster another alchemical materials save DC.
Anarchic Water: Variant Holy Water
Axiomatic Water: Variant Holy Water
Blacklight Oil: when burned for light it gives a greater range, but less illumination
Bladesharp: Add a bonus to your blades for making them even sharper for a brief time
BloodBind: Alchemy's answer to the Neosporin soaked band-aid
Boilwort: herbs and roots that when steeped for tea and consumed give a bonus against damage from disease.
Boompot: Variant Alchemist's Fire, big flash of fire, loud explosion
Brazier Mug: If you've ever eaten an MRE, you already know what this is. A chemical cooking method that is safe to store and transport, perfect for cooking when fire is not an option.
Clocktinder: Essentially an alchemical fuse cord.
Dawnleaf: Ever wonder what's in those peace pipes?
Doomhammer: A weapon designed to work in tandem with your alchemical items, interesting idea.
Dragonrod: Flame thrower anyone?
Firegut Ale: Ale aged with hot peppers...I actually have a friend who has drank something of this nature...he does not recommend it..lol. This item's purpose is to grant bonuses against cold environments.
Fog Bomb: We all remember smoke bombs from our childhood, right?
Iron Soup: Just like Gramma Dwarf used to make, good for helping avoid disease.
Itching Dust: Ah...another childhood classic.
Landvines: “so, you leave the tanglefoot bags alone with some land mines, turn on some Barry White music, light a few candles....and presto!”
Mage Candle: Candle that “burns” via light spells, extending the duration of said spell.
Mummy Leaches: Petrified leeches that still slurp away at impurities in the blood.
Nightglow Candles: throws a bluish black light that allows those with darkvision to extend their range.
Salves: 4 different colored salves treating things such as burns, bleeding, freezing, and blindness.
Shocklash: The alchemical answer to the electrified whip using a Charge Flask to deliver the current.
Charge Flask: While not technically listed as an item, it is introduced in the Shocklash description, and is it's own alchemical goody. Essentially a battery used to power the Shocklash, it has enough juice for a single discharge before having to be recharged (with copper coil and fur matt).
Shadow Paste: Old School Camo Paint
Slickback: The stuff they squirt all over guys like John Cena to make him shiny and hard to hold
Spiderbane Pot: Citronella candles anyone?
Thundernet: A net containing dozens of thunderstones
Wayfarer Loaf: Fruitcake?? really??
Unholy Water: yet another Variation of Holy Water.

I have to admit, I am torn on this one. I can see usages for a great deal of these items, and therefore am inclined to say the book fulfills it's purpose in giving us new items to flesh out the alchemists supply options. I could also just as easily say that a great deal of these items, while useful, are about as exciting as rope. For what it set out to do, introduce a collection of new alchemical items, this PDF does in fact succeed, with very little flaw, it's just lacking the wow factor for me.

-EDIT- Having been questioned on why I ended up where I did for a rating, I asked myself the same question, and returned to the material to go over it again. Having reassessed the material, I am raising my original rating to a 4 star as this PDF does deliver on exactly what it offers, and every item within this collection can easily find usage within a game. My opinions on Alchemical classes aside, the book still lacked the Wow factor I was hoping for though, and as such I can not give it a 5 star.

Excellent little sourcebook of alchemical items

This pdf is 9 pages long, 2/3 of a page front cover, 1 page editorial & SRD, leaving 7 1/3 pages of content, so what has Kragnar to offer?

The legendary goblin entrepreneur has opened a shop of rather interesting alchemical items. Those of you who follow my reviews know that I have a soft spot for well-crafted alchemical items as they serve to enforce my ideal of magic as something special and non-commoditized goods while offering a plethora of interesting problem-solving strategies. The introduction to this pdf acknowledges said benefits before going on to present a chart with the respective items including cost, weight and craft DC, totalling 37 items (including variations). Quite a bunch of items for the price!

From lawful and chaotic holy waters to goads that increase alchemical item's DCs, from oil that produces far-reaching, yet dim light to medical herbs, flash-bang-like pots to self-cooking mugs to clocktinders (which essentially enable you to build timebombs), we get a nice array of items. A hammer that can load alchemical items to add their properties to the strikes is also available at Kragnar's, offering a cool item that has already seen A LOT of use in my campaign.
Have I mentioned the one-use flame-throwing dragon rods? The ale that helps against the cold? And believe me, you can have a lot of fun with itching powder, fog bombs, mine versions of tanglefoot bags (landvines), mummified leeches (to suck out impurities), salves that help against the elements etc.

Of course you can have even more fun with the charge flask-using, electrifying shock-lashes - never leave home or go there without yours! All right, sorry, I'll stop the innuendo.

it should be noted that the credit-page sports a nice 1-panel comic by Stan!.

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 3-column standard and the artwork is ok. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is ok at this price. What can I say, I'm a sucker for alchemy. I love this pdf. It's design is elegant, the items presented are cool and the alchemical weapons are neatly designed. Apart from the somewhat bland 3 holy water variations, I loved all of the items and have used several to good effect in my own campaign. Due to my lack of things to criticize and the excellent and concise design of Owen K.C. Stephens, I'll settle for a final verdict of 5 stars for the goblin's alchemical shop - well done!

Very Good and Fun

This was a great little addition to my game. I'm running the Kingmaker Path and Bokken will be making several of these for the players soon enough. Plus the bad guys will have some of them as well. None of them are overly powerful but fun and useful and will fit my game very well. I think if they would have had the cost and DC to make in the individual write ups would have been a plus. I agree the art is nothing great but I really didn't buy it for the art. Also more items is always good but what I got was good for the price.

Krazy Kragnar's Alchemy Surplus Shop by Otherworld Creations

This product is 9 pages long. The first 2 pages are the cover, introduction and cost table for the new alchemy equipment. The chart includes the name of the object, cost, weight and craft DC to create it.

That is the list of all the items in the book. I didn't list what they all did only highlighted a few as examples to give the reader a idea what to expect. It finishes with a single page of the OGL.

Closing thoughts. I love this, many of the items are interesting and things you would expect to get made with alchemy. Nothing is very powerful but many of them are useful and/or fun. My big complaint? Not enough of them, they need to do at least one if not more follow up books for this. The artwork is not as good as most SGG products. I didn't notice any errors while reading it, nor found anything hard to understand. So I am giving this a 5 star rating.